Calgary-born comedian Ophira Eisenberg dreaming of a Judeo-Christmas in new documentary

Ophira Eisenberg.

Photograph by: Dan Dion
, Calgary Herald

When Ophira Eisenberg was a child growing up in Calgary, she asked her parents who it was that brought Jewish children Hanukkah presents.

Her mother said it was Moses. Apparently, the white-bearded prophet came down from the mountain each year and handed out dreidels and socks to good boys and girls.

“There was always these kinds of mash-up stories,” says Eisenberg, a comedian and writer who now lives in New York City. “I give my parents big points for creativity. There were fun mash-up stories to explain things.”

Eisenberg, who was born and raised in Calgary, tells this story as part of Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas, filmmaker Larry Weinstein’s charming, funny and captivating documentary that charts the Jewish experience with yuletide festivities. The film’s focus, at least initially, is to explore how most of our beloved secular Christmas tunes were actually written by Jewish composers. It’s a jumping-off point for an exploration of how Jews have traditionally celebrated, or not celebrated, the most Christian of holidays and how this may reflect the delicate balance they have maintained between preserving their culture and assimilating since landing in America.

Eisenberg joins fellow comedians Mark Breslin, Lisa Geduldig and Jackie Mason and a number of other experts and Jewish personalities for the film, which airs Dec. 3 on the Documentary Channel and Dec. 7 on CBC. Much of it takes place in a curiously musical Chinese restaurant, where staff are prone to breaking into jubilant, Jewish-written Christmas carols. In between interviews, there are musical interludes by Canadian musicians, including Steven Page crooning a sombre version of Silver Bells while waiting for his takeout chicken balls and Tom Wilson giving a rollicking run through Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer in a dark alley.

Weinstein traces the history of Jewish composers and chronicles how many of them, from Irving Berlin to Mel Torme, came to write famous Christmas songs. As a basically rootless people, Jews were the perfect candidates to assimilate when they arrived in the 19th century. America was the promised land and they wanted to fit in and being a songwriter was one avenue that was open to them. So writing Christmas songs, among other types of popular tunes, became a path to success for some. White Christmas, Silver Bells, The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire), Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Do You Hear What I Hear are among the favourites written by Jewish composers. The irony has never been lost on Jewish people.

“It’s a little bit of an ongoing joke that the Jews wrote all the best Christmas carols,” Eisenberg says. “You can make the same comparison when you talk about standup comedy. I live in America and a lot of Americans always say ‘some of the greatest comedians in America are Canadians.’ Maybe it’s always that the outsider has the greater approach to the insider’s material because of their objectivity.”

For Eisenberg, discussing her own relationship with Christmas for the film drew her back to her Calgary upbringing. Her father retired as principal of the Calgary Hebrew School around the same time Eisenberg was born. The youngest of six, she was the first of the offspring to attend public school in Calgary. In the early 1980s at Chinook Park, she was one of two Jewish kids. But she clearly remembers some of the Christmas festivities.

“We would go into the gymnasium all together and they would put the lyrics to Christmas carols on the overhead projector and the music teacher would be on the piano and we would all sing Christmas carols for half an hour,” she says. “There’s a lot of good Christmas carols, I’m not going to lie. They are pretty catchy. I could probably enter a competition. I feel like I know many more verses than any other people.”

One of the theories put forth by Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas is that songs written by Jews may have had joyous words, but the sadness in the music reflects the idea of being left out of the “happiest time of the year.”

Eisenberg admits that it wasn’t hard to feel like an outsider when you are one of the few Jewish kids around. Sure, the Eisenberg children learned about Hanukkah and received presents and had fun. But …

“I wanted to see Santa, I wanted a tree,” she says. “Oh my God, did I want a tree, which is ultimately pagan. But I just loved them. Who doesn’t love a sparkly tree in their house with all these ornaments? It’s pretty. I watched all of those holiday specials, the cartoons. I wanted presents. I wanted to be part of waking up in the morning and running down the stairs like they showed in the commercials. It all looked amazing.”

As a comedian and writer, Eisenberg has earned a reputation for sharing funny and often poignant tales of her early days. In 2014, she released the memoir Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy, a very funny book about her sexual experiences that has recently been optioned by Zucker Productions for a feature film. After graduating from Western Canada High School, she studied at the University of Calgary and later McGill. She moved to Toronto to try her hand at acting and standup and eventually landed a role in the original Fringe production of The Drowsy Chaperone. Fifteen years ago, she moved to New York City and eventually joined The Moth, a storytelling organization and radio show. She currently hosts NPR’s Ask Me Another, which has celebs participating in a program of trivia, word games and puzzles in front of a live audience. The holiday edition will air Dec. 22.

“We are calling it our Quizmas Show or Puzzleanukkah,” Eisenberg says. “We are going to do quizzes based on themes of past, present and future based on The Christmas Carol.”

She also plans to return to Calgary this year with her husband and two-year-old son to celebrate Hanukkah with her mother.

To celebrate the holidays they will light candles, exchange gifts and bake challah. But the family will be back in the Big Apple for Christmas Day and Eisenberg is determined to get a tree, even if it’s “a little, tiny Charlie Brown Christmas tree.”

“Modest, decorated with some non-denominational ornaments and some lights,” Eisenberg says. “There might be one gift on Christmas. I think it will be from his parents and not from Santa. He will be raised with the idea that Santa is just people’s parents and he should tell all of his friends that as soon as he has the ability to.”

Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas airs Dec. 3 on the Documentary Channel and Dec. 7 on the CBC.

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